


And This Love is Forever

by Coquette



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Biblical References, End of the World, Love Changes Things, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 21:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2483798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coquette/pseuds/Coquette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Tabris knew of a million other lives where he'd kept running into Shinji as if the Universe had surely put some specific thought into it? </p><p>And this time Kaoru has to bear the burden of those memories. Will history repeat itself or...</p>
            </blockquote>





	And This Love is Forever

Tabris has met Shinji before.

In another life. Another time.

Tabris has known him. Tabris has hated him. Loved him even.

Even the souls of angels are not specific in reincarnation. The universe is not so merciful; or perhaps it simply does not understand the insignificant cares of something that is alien to its vast multitudes for all they inhabit its skin. 

In this life a man, in that a semi-sentient organism of a dying breed, or Tabris' own personal favourite, the being of an angel of the Cosmos.

Tabris knows Shinji in a million different lives.

But it is only in this one that Shinji has known him and hated him and loved him **back.**

 

_We're human and nothing else._

 

In this life, Shinji's eyes are as old as Tabris feels. An age of pain is reflected in those dark eyes, and the shadows that hang within should have never existed in a fourteen year old boy's mind.

But in this world Tabris is the Angel of free will, the carrier of Adam's immortal soul, sent to destroy the Lilin for their arrogant sin.

Tabris has brought this war to Shinji's world.

 

_And the First Angel had descended to the land, ominous and silent, waiting for the dawn of his race amidst the dusty impregnable rocks._

 

It doesn't really matter much either way.

Shinji is an old soul, a broken one. A particular sort of hurt, this unloved and lonely brand of fire stamped on his bleeding heart. Maybe his father has something to do with that. That man looks at his son and sees the ghost of his wife - the shape of Shinji's nose, his down-turned mouth- living in him.

No wonder in his maniacal desire to bring her back to him, he pushed everything including her son away.

Pathetic, really.

But then again, these humans, these _Lilin_ children, feel so much more deeply than the rest of life ever had.

And it enslaves the curious intellect inside Tabris.

 

_And the second angel poured out her bowl on the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse. And everything in the sea died. And life renewed._

 

Tabris knew a life once.

He'd served his liege lord on a dusty red planet of rock unimaginatively called Morrel. A prisoner had been brought in, and orders were given to make him speak his secrets.

Kar'fael, for that was what they called his Morrellian shell, had been all too eager to break the boy of his secrets.

He'd got every last secret out too, and left Shinji **Eiden** , bleeding out, unconscious, to die on a cold slab of stone, missing an arm, a leg and an eye.

In another Tabris was the one captured, and Shinji the guard tasked with extracting information.

He'd given Tabris food and clothing, snuck him out when the guard watch was rotating shift.

Tabris has never pretended to be anything but what he is. Shinji makes him question what that is, each time they clash. Shinji has never been anything but what he just _is_ in every life. But while Tabris is curious, intelligent and detached from the very idea of everything around him, Shinji is life itself. 

Goodness, and loving and protective of what he considers his precious family.

And getting harder to ignore.

 

_And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if any man worship the impostor the same shall drink of the wrath of Creation._

 

In one life, they had traded kisses for money and sex for more money. In another, Tabris had held Shinji's head underwater till his struggles ceased. In another they passed each other on the streets once and never saw each other again. In yet another, he helped Shinji win a silent war of attrition and then slit his throat with the same knife he'd used to kill his wife Rei, the only one left of his family in that life.

In this life, Shinji is a fourteen year old boy given the duty of saving the entire world from the coming of the Angels. First Impact, Second Impact, there is only death and destruction in humanity's future and no hope for anything else.

Tabris should know, he's the one bringing it.

 

_And the fourth angel poured out his sacred vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire._

 

The Earth burns as his brothers and sisters massacre it.

They give their lives one by one in an effort to reach their father.

He never really means to be cruel; it's simply in his nature that he cannot be otherwise. There was a time once when for the simple knowledge of what the body could take, he'd dissected Shinji **Nuadr** alive and noted the result of each and every incision with a clinical precision.

A thousand lives before this, a thousand lives ahead, and a million happening in the now - what is one little spark of life to Tabris? In another life he himself is human, but in this life he is Tabris and Tabris is all.

He will not stop the progress of the Earth to its final judgment.

He will find his body and join Creation.

Nothing else matters.

 

_And the fifth angel poured out his sacred vial upon the seat of the impostor; and her kingdom was full of darkness._

 

The skies turn sky blue and glittering black in turn. 

Men and women and children walk the roads with bent shoulders and lagging feet. Behind them the ruined spirals of the city continue to fall into disrepair. 

It is as it should be. He has his duty and he will watch it happen. Only, these Lilin are so beautiful in their pain, brilliant in their determination to keep going. He think them akin to ants, another organism engendered to this planet. Such conformity in the ranks. 

In the face of certain death they keep moving, tireless in their efforts to persevere. So beautiful and so pitiful. 

__So when the world continues to burn and life continues to fear the coming days, and Tabris is sent to the Geofront in his human shell where he finally lays eyes on this world's Shinji he cannot understand the sudden cold clenching in the space where his human heart beats._ _

__Because even sequestered among his community of his brethren, Shinji is a round cut diamond, sharp and cold and so very lonely._ _

__It is something Tabris understands or should he say, **Nagisa Kaoru**. His human name._ _

___Kaoru_ feels the first stirrings of something unnameable come to life in his chest._ _

__

_And the sixth angel poured out his sacred vial upon the great rivers of the land; and the water thereof was dried up._

__

__Pain and loneliness._ _

__Tabris cannot help but resonate to the music of Shinji's dark passion. In this life he is old beyond his years, and yet childishly immature. Shinji is sullen, withdrawn. He hurts inside and breaks apart at the slightest touch._ _

__How can Kaoru not help but be attracted to this puzzle, the sole human who will either save or condemn mankind to Instrumentality?_ _

__And so he offers Shinji, for that is his true name, the only one by which Tabris will acknowledge the one who fell him, his hand._ _

__There is a moment when all is still and Shinji's mouth curves; a cruel twist, sad and painful and that's when Tabris realizes what he'd done to himself._ _

__And later, when he offers Shinji something he's never offered him before, not that he'd never had the chance to, but because he hadn't wanted to. But he must have, or will, but time doesn't make sense anymore when this creature of humanity's best evolution lays curled in his arms, head pillowed on one pale forearm._ _

__Tabris has realized an emotion. Kaoru experiences it._ _

__Shinji Ikari has given Tabris, the avenging Angel of free will his heart._ _

__The feeling lingers._ _

__

_And those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken._

__

__Reluctantly Tabris leaves to do his duty._ _

__

_And the Seventh Angel came and then the Eighth and the Ninth and so on, and one by one they ravaged the land but fell prey in the end to humanity's wicked persistence._

__

__In another life, he met Shinji **Astin** at a day-care center. The short boy was crying in the corner after being bullied by his bigger peers. Tabris **Keith** walked over and offered him a hand. _ _

__He didn't take it._ _

__In another life Tabris **Sean** is a firefighter. He sees someone run into a building on fire. He comes out with two children slung over his shoulders. The children live but despite his best efforts the man with tired black eyes and a wry smile does not live._ _

__In another life they are plants. Tabris has only a semi-awareness of his life. He's happy to be cross pollinated by the flowers living across him. Not that he knows. Not that he cares._ _

__In another life they are angel and man; death and life. In another life they fight each other for the right to win and for a place in the cosmos. In another life they were never meant to love each other but they did. In another life Shinji refuses to bend to Tabris' will but loves him just the same. In another life that was the same as this, Nagisa had met Shinji much earlier than anticipated._ _

__It would have turned out so beautiful in another life._ _

__In this it is heart-rending._ _

__

_And the seventeenth angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done._

___ _

___Tabris realizes for all his being an Angel he was well and truly tricked. Central Dogma deep beneath the Japanese Geofront never held his body, his father/mother's flesh and there will be no communion, no joining to be one. When he realizes this he knows he betrayed Shinji for nothing._ _ _

___He betrayed Shinji._ _ _

___There is only one thing left._ _ _

___Kill me, he says to the boy wearing his _enemysisterfriend's_ body, inside an armored cage of angel bone and human mechanics, the boy who can still feel his mother's soul unlike Tabris who will never feel anything anymore. _ _ _

___There is only one freedom._ _ _

_Kill me._

___Shinji obeys him this one time._ _ _

___ _

_And then there was naught but the sound of a single horn, and the waves arose to beat at the cliffs and the land tumbled down to meet the water and humanity was caught in between and ceaselessly battered on both sides and their souls were carried by the angels ascending, till in a burst of final blow of the Horn of Heaven they became as one._

___ _

___Instrumentality._ _ _

___The joining of each conscious to become as one. The loss of the individual and the acceptance of the whole as a single entity._ _ _

___Shinji angry at the world, angry with Tabris maybe had made his choice._ _ _

___Tabris hurts even as he is melded flesh to blood to bone with him._ _ _

___This is not what he wanted._ _ _

___Tabris though, Tabris was reunited with Adam/Lilith, his _brothershisterfathermother_ at the moment of the finale and he thinks, _you stupid fool Gendou, you did this for your wife and you've killed your son just as much as I did.__ _ _

___So Tabris made a choice._ _ _

___He calls his other half, the female aspect to his male, Adam to Lilith, and both of them acknowledge the only one they'd loved and wanted to be loved by._ _ _

___He tells Shinji, I loved you. And Rei tells Shinji we will always love you._ _ _

___Tabris tells him. I always did. In every life, in every time. And in this you chose me back._ _ _

___And then both of them offer Shinji a final choice._ _ _

___ _

_And there was a shepherd that survived the end of the Earth and he he said to his Flock, rest in me for I will watch over you as you sleep and as you wake and he bade his sister do the same till the lone lamb left was satisfied._

___ _

___Tabris is the Seventeenth and Last Angel, he is also the First Angel and the father of all the other Angels. Just as Rei is Lilith and the mother of all humanity, he is also a Seed of Life._ _ _

___They could not do it alone._ _ _

___But Rei is Lilith is life itself, just as Shinji is, just in an altogether different sense._ _ _

___Tabris is Adam is the only thing powerful enough to change the tides of Instrumentality._ _ _

___And together they remake humankind._ _ _

___All for that one boy with the haunted eyes and the bitter smile._ _ _

___Because Tabris has met him in another life, and because Kaoru has never met him before. Because Shinji gave him his heart and crushed Tabris' in his chest because he loved him. And knew of the cost to humanity if he didn't._ _ _

___Because Tabris is an Angel of the Cosmos._ _ _

___He is the Angel of Free Will._ _ _

___And he has just made his choice to forsake his duty._ _ _

___ _

_And the Lamb gazed at the flood above and the churning earth before and bleated at the pale shepherd that he would rely on the tall ones._

___ _

___In another life Shinji **Amir** is a prince of a long ago Eastern Empire. Tabris **Solom** is an abnormality, a slave with pale white skin and red eyes._ _ _

___Amir sees him one day on a walk outside his palace._ _ _

___He sees Solom being abused as a roadside attraction at a circus._ _ _

___Amir offers him his hand._ _ _

___Solom takes it._ _ _

**Author's Note:**

> So I might have used a couple modified verses from the Bible and made up a few completely for this fic. If you are a Devout Christian I assure you I meant no harm. Have a nice consecrated cookie for your troubles.
> 
> Neon Genesis Evangelion will always be my favorite show in the world. When coupled with the song Exogenesis Symphony (which partly motivated this work) by Muse, it is like heavenly catnip. Human After All, by Dirt Poor Robins was also a big help(if you haven't heard it, go listen, right now - it's the best ever soundtrack for NGE). It makes for a lovely haunting atmosphere.
> 
> Thanks to Walsa for trying to creep me out when the electricity went and setting just the right atmosphere for my writing. >.> You're evil. And inspirational.
> 
> Finally, if you read this, have my eternal love. If you just randomly scrolled down here to the notes then screw you very much, go back to the beginning and read before I freaking hunt you down and kill you. Please and thanks. :)


End file.
